Wipro July-Oct net profit up 6% at Rs 2,192 cr, IT services revenue seen rising next quarter

India’s third-largest software services exporter Wipro Ltd posted a better than expected second-quarter profit on Tuesday, adding that it would match industry growth rates by the fourth quarter.The IT firm, headquartered in the south Indian technology hub of Bengaluru, said it expects a sequential improvement in its growth trajectory in the third quarter.“In the last three quarters, our guidance has been continuously moving upwards. With that trajectory, we believe in Q4, we will be able to deliver industry-matching growth,” Chief Executive Abidali Z. Neemuchwala said in the press conference.Some analysts doubted the year-end forecast. “Wipro is quite far off from that sort of a trajectory. It’s quite likely that it will continue to trail its larger peers and will fall short of the industry growth rate,” said Apurva Prasad, analyst at HDFC Securities.

The company said it expected revenue from the IT services business to be in the range of $2.01 billion - $2.05 billion in the quarter ended 31 December.The forecast range is wide and gives no clear indication of any possible traction, Emkay Global Financial Services analysts said in a note.Second-quarter profit rose 6 percent to Rs 2,192 crore beating analysts’ estimate of  Rs 2,080 crore, according to Thomson Reuters data.Revenue from core IT services rose to Rs 13,169 billion rupees  from Rs 13,137 billion rupees, slightly above its earlier forecast. Revenue from its biggest business - banking, financial services and insurance - rose 8.2 percent.India’s largest IT services firm, Tata Consultancy Services, reported a 2 percent decline in second-quarter profit last week, held back by sluggish growth in banking and retail services.